In the manufacture of electronic products, great value is placed upon cost savings, physical size and weight savings, and electrical performance. Amongst other factors, the cost of an electronic product or subsystem is related to the area of a printed circuit board (“PCB” upon which components are mounted, whether for electrical connection or mechanical operation. The size and weight of the end product being manufactured are related to the number and size of the one or more PCBs forming the product or subsystem. Electrical performance is related to the length of signal lines between electrical components, the distance between an electrical component and the power source for the component, the distance between the power and ground pads on an electrical component and the noise filtering components to the power and ground inputs, and other factors.
Noise filtering (often termed “decoupling” of the power and ground terminals of an electronic component in the current art requires incremental PCB area corresponding to each added passive component and the interconnect to the passive component(s). The effectiveness of decoupling capacitors in filtering power line noise may be improved by short distances between the power and ground input terminals and the decoupling capacitor. Short distances between the power and ground input terminals also minimizes parasitic inductance, diminishing any ringing.
In addition to use in decoupling, passive components, such as capacitors and resistors, may be affixed elsewhere on the substrate, appropriately connected electrically to connection points, the electrical connection points being connected electrically to other connection points by electrically conductive lines. External components and their associated connectors and conducting lines add incrementally to the area required for a PCB to implement a system level electronic design.
In the relevant art, footprint area is sometimes decreased by using the smallest surface mount devices (“SMD” possible, using packaging that combines several passives into one package, and making cost/area/performance tradeoffs by eliminating passives that, while they may improve the quality of the electronic design, are not strictly required. In some cases electronic design is sub-optimized by eliminating some passives due to footprint constraints.
Current construction methods require additional footprint area as components external to an integrated circuit or a semiconductor die are added. It may not be possible, due to mechanical or area constraints or simply too many components, to place all of them optimally, the physical implementation thereby compromising the quality of the electronic deign.
What is needed is a method for providing electronic components wherein the components are optimally placed, requiring little or no additional area upon the system printed circuit board or substrate.